Italian PM Draghi wins vote but his unity govt is in peril

By NICOLE WINFIELD and FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Mario Draghi has won a confidence vote in the Senate, but boycotts by three of his key coalition allies in the voting have likely doomed the government’s prospects of survival. The vote Wednesday went 95-38 in the favor of Draghi’s government, but it was a hollow victory. Just before the roll call vote, representatives of the populist 5-Star Movement, the conservative forces of the Forza Italia party and the right-wing League party announced they would skip the vote.  Draghi’s offer to resign on July 14 was rebuffed by Italy’s president. The coalition’s collapse came despite an unprecedented outpouring of public pleas for him to stay at the helm of Italy’s national unity government.